Choices of Chance
by supergirl911
Summary: Despite her efforts to keep the visions of Bella at bay, one slips through and then they assault her with a fury. So when she decides to act, it's simply because the visions are driving her crazy... At least that's what she'll tell Edward.


She was walking from the truck, her skin sallow, eyes hollow; though walking couldn't aptly describe her staggering gait. She moved as though everything, the slightest lifting of a finger, was simply too much. As though the act of living itself was no longer appreciated, instead a burden.

In the very corner of the vision, I caught glimpses of our graceful white house, but that wasn't necessary to alert me as to were she was, I remembered in perfect clarity the forest surrounding the lawn, the tinkle of the brook that had been in the background of many of our family moments. This _thing_, that had Bella's face, Bella's arms, legs, Bella's eyes but none of the life, this lifeless creature, this wasn't the Bella of my memories. This was a cruel, twisted imitation of the girl I wanted desperately as a sister, a shell of the girl who slept in my brother's arms.

It was as if the grief had overcome her, eaten away at her, demolished her, leaving the remains in this sad, slow moving person This lost lifeless girl who wasn't even aware of the tears that were rolling down her cheeks as she trudged through the overgrown grasses.

_ This isn't how it's supposed to be!_ My mind was screaming shrilly, rebelling against this horror. It had been so much effort, keeping such a firm control on my visions, blocking out Bella. Most likely because of how much I valued her. It had taken constant control, not even the slightest lapse and all of the effort left my weary. . My head had ached from the rigid hold I had on it. So I had let go, for mere moments, just to ease the pressure that I had felt building behind my ears and in those mere moments it had taken ahold of me.

As in many cases when people are disillusioned, I wasn't sure how I though I would find Bella, (married to Mike Newton with three burly blonde sons?) I just knew this wasn't right. In any moment, and there were more moments than I should hasve allowed there to be, that I though of Bella, none of the specifics were there. I would just imagine small glimpses, more likely than not small pieces of memories from the time she was the sun in our lives. Maybe I would imagine just the hint of her smiling at some unknown thing or the sun filtering through her hair while she laughed. What I hadn't considered was that Edward had altered Bella as radically as she had altered him.

There were no specifics, no set precedent as to where I though Bella would be at this point, all I knew was that this was wrong. This dead girl with the bone white skin and dead was wrong. A voice in my head argued that I was being byast, how could I fairly judge this image when I so deperetly wanted to stop the visions of Edward in dark corners of dark buildings in dark cities? This new Bella was wrong, the Edward she had brought out who we had all come to love was gone, and to put it very simply, two wrongs simply don't equal a right, as Edward seemed to think they did.

That was what this was all about, in Edwards mind, doing the _right _thing for Bella. As my mind continued to remind me, this wasn't right. Bella had reached the bottom of the staris that led to the porch. I tensed instinctively, my breathing stopping as I waited to see what Bella would do, but she just stood there. The vision had frozen. much like a movie does when you press pause.

I slump into the soft recliner that I had curled up in, slowly opening my eyes to glare into the fire. A small part of me was upset, furious at being torn away, just as something was about to happen another, larger part was worried. Whatever Bella chose to do when she reached that step would effect everything much more than regular, unconcious decisions. Bella had made a series of choices there, she had chosen to get out of the truck, chosen to take each step toward our house yet I had seen all of that. The only reason my vision would freeze as it had would be if there were two very different things depending on that choice, two different paths her life could take that would never again reunite. And she had no idea what choice she would make. Run away, scrambling back to her truck, or step onto the pale wood of our porch.

It seemed so trivial, especially when it lingered in my mind next to all the memories of her arriving at our house in that monstrocity, someone from the family going out to meet her and the pair of them stepping easily onto that same porch and into the house.

I sighed as I shifted my gaze from the fire outside, into the dense green of the artic forest, my thoughts shifting from the choice Bella was about to make to the choice Edward had made that had led to this.


End file.
